Navy Hopes Ads Will Land New Recruits : Image: The Navy launches a new advertising campaign it hopes will change its image and make the service more attractive to potential recruits.

Navy officials thought the movie “Top Gun” would bring in thousands of recruits. It didn’t. Many moviegoers mistakenly thought actor Tom Cruise was portraying an Air Force pilot.

They hoped the submarine movie “The Hunt for Red October” would help. It didn’t. Sean Connery played a Russian.

Finally, they had to face it.

“We really lack an image,” said Rear Adm. Henry C. McKinney, commander of the Navy Recruiting Command in Washington.

In an effort to fill that void, the Navy has hired a New York advertising agency and concocted a new recruiting campaign and slogan that senior officers hope will lure young men to the Navy instead of the other armed services.

Recognizing that it is having increasing trouble competing with the panache of the Air Force, and the popularity of such slogans as the Army’s “Be All You Can Be” and “The Marines Are Looking for a Few Good Men,” the Navy launched a new advertising campaign last fall. A new round of the Navy’s television commercials will be aired in San Diego and Los Angeles, mostly during sports events, beginning in September.

If a young man believes the campaign, he will join the Navy and earn the respect of his elder brother who may have treated him like a toad, gain the adoration of his girlfriend and secure the admiration ofhis former high school teachers.

“See, he’s not so little anymore,” says the brother in one commercial as he touts his sibling’s newly acquired talent of landing high-performance jets on an aircraft carrier.

“Kids look for acceptance by significant people in their lives,” McKinney explained.

In a recent study conducted by an advertising agency to determine the Navy’s appeal, the majority of young men surveyed said they thought the Army was most likely to offer a job they would want, best prepare them for a civilian job and offer the most money for college. The same group said the Air Force offered the best living conditions, was the most technical of the Armed Forces, and provided the best equipment.

And the group rated the Marines as the best of the armed forces for self-discipline and leadership training, according to the study of 17- to 21-year-old men. The study, conducted in eight different areas across the nation, was performed for the Navy by BBDO, the ad agency that has the Navy as a client. In that study, the Navy was ranked at the top in only two of 16 categories: travel opportunities and nuclear energy-related training.

“I know we have to do something,” McKinney said.

The battle is a tough one, especially since the nation’s pool of young men, which has been steadily decreasing, is slated to plummet in the mid-’90s. Market research shows that 55% of all eligible candidates have no inclination to join the military. And, the Navy must compete with the other branches of the military, including the Army, which is scheduled to spend $60.3 million on advertising in 1990--or three times what the Navy hopes to spend.

For the Navy, the spate of accidents that resulted in the unprecedented safety stand down last fall only worsened its image problem.

“The negative press has really hurt the Navy; the accidents really hurt their image,” said Charles MacLachlan, an account supervisor with BBDO.

The Navy has set aside $9 million to air in 1990 three 30-second television spots, which were all filmed in San Diego. Those ads are a far cry from earlier spots. The main figures are actors, and Navy personnel are used only as extras. Gone is the emphasis on travel and adventure.

“That’s not what kids are looking for today. Today, they want education and training in a high-tech world,” McKinney said.

The Navy, with help from BBDO, has developed a more “sensitive” approach.

The Navy’s new slogan, “You and the Navy: Full Speed Ahead,” hails to glorious bygone days more than a century ago. On Aug. 5, 1864, Rear Adm. David Farragut led a fleet of 18 Union ships into Mobile Bay, where he found a flotilla of 18 Confederate ships. When the enemy began firing, Farragut, aloft in the rigging of the flagship, cried: “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

The ads, which all target young men--not women, involve a brother, teacher, and girlfriend talking admiringly about a young man, who is seen in action-packed shots. The spots emphasize the camaraderie and learning opportunities afforded by the Navy.

In the campaign, officials hope to target five different concerns, expressed by a number of young men in the study:

* Loneliness and isolation, because they could be deployed on ships for months at a time.

* Safety and security.

* Lack of control over their lives.

* Recruiter misinformation, since young men said they believed recruiters would say anything to get people to join.

* Inadequate pay.

Adm. McKinney hopes the ad campaign will ease the workload of recruiters, who now contact dozens of people for each one who joins. He also hopes it will boost the Navy’s image.

“I really think the taxpayer knows about the Navy. I don’t think the youth of today see the Navy as anything other than a gray ship,” McKinney said. “We just have to enhance the Navy’s image so people know how great we are.”